Zero Calories, Instant Indigestion: Middle-Aged Men Dropping Like Flies from 'VR Ramen' Virtual Heartburn

Cyber Susuru Inc. released its long-awaited VR ramen experience service for middle-aged users, "Meta Jiro," on the 9th — only for it to trigger unexpected health complaints and spark widespread controversy. Despite the physical calorie intake being a perfect zero, droves of adults are reporting severe "virtual indigestion" immediately after use.

The service was originally developed to solve a deeply felt middle-aged lament: "I want to slurp down backfat-loaded ramen like the old days, but my stomach won’t forgive me the next morning." Equipped with state-of-the-art haptic feedback chopsticks and an olfactory reproduction device that pumps tonkotsu pork bone aroma directly into the nasal cavity, it delivers a murderously greasy texture in full 8K resolution.

However, the excessively realistic experience has completely short-circuited the aging human brain. Upon receiving intense "ultra-rich tonkotsu delivery" data from the eyes and nose, the brain (headquarters) issues an emergency directive to the empty stomach (field office): "Massive fat incoming! Pump gastric acid immediately!" But no food ever arrives at the site, and the secreted gastric acid merely irritates the stomach lining — a classic black-company-style communication breakdown happening inside the human body.

At an experiential facility in central Tokyo, suited businessmen were seen chanting "Garlic! Fat! Rich sauce!" like an incantation, only to slump forward just three minutes later — still wearing VR goggles, hands clutching an imaginary bowl (grasping at thin air) — groaning, "Ugh… I can’t take it, it’s too heavy." Paramedics who responded to 119 emergency calls found grown adults clutching their stomachs in midair and prescribed real Ohta’s Isan stomach medicine in a scene too surreal for fiction.

In response to this crisis, the operator chose not to suspend the service — instead, they pulled off a brilliant feat of alchemy. They hastily implemented a subscription button in the upper-right corner of the VR counter offering unlimited virtual "Tokucha" and "Black Oolong Tea" by the virtual mug for ¥980 per month.

This new feature, banking on the ingenious placebo effect that "virtual health tea works best on stomachs wrecked by virtual fat," became a massive hit. Suffering middle-aged men frantically press the midair purchase button one after another, washing down imaginary heartburn with imaginary tea. Their real stomachs remain empty, their brains drown in grease, and only their wallets reliably get slimmer. The evolution of technology fighting against aging delivers a cruel truth in maximum resolution: "Desires that exceed your limits always come with a subscription fee."

Stakeholder Comments

• Company CEO: "This is a historic moment where our overwhelming rendering power has triumphed over the human autonomic nervous system. Next, we’ll offer virtual stomach medicine for ¥500 per month."
• Test Subject (Age 55, Sales Director): "My stomach is so heavy I can’t eat dinner, yet my belly keeps growling. Something fundamentally human has broken inside me."
• Gastroenterologist: "The field office (stomach) has received no shipment, yet upper management (brain) is screaming to pump out digestive fluid. We need a labor standards bureau intervention for the human body."
• Paramedic: "When I arrived on scene, grown adults were staring into the void and burping. When I handed over stomach medicine, one of them reached for a nonexistent glass saying ‘With cold water, please.’ It was a little frightening."
• VR Goggles: "Not a single drop of backfat has splashed on my lenses, but I’m soaked every day from these men’s stress sweat."
• Wife (50s): "My husband comes home smugly announcing ‘I had Jiro-style ramen today, so no dinner for me,’ but in the middle of the night he sneaks into the kitchen to boil somen noodles. It’s extremely annoying."
• Young User: "These old dudes haven’t physically eaten anything but they’re paying a subscription for virtual tea. Hilarious, to put it mildly."
• Virtual Tokucha (Subscription Edition): "They are saved simply by convincing their brains they drank me. That’s ¥980 per month of peace of mind."
• Stomach: "Headquarters suddenly messaged me: ‘Mega-class backfat incoming!’ So I scrambled to prepare, but no matter how long I waited, nothing but air showed up. Total nightmare."
• Development Engineer: "I lowered the texture resolution a bit and made a ‘Light Soy Sauce VR,’ but nobody gave it a second glance. People crave sinful flavors."

International Expressions

Haiku

• Virtual grease — gastric acid churns on a spring night
• Inside the brain, drowning in tonkotsu — stomach stays bare
• Subscription tea washes down the digital fat
• Spring thunder — a salaryman cradles an empty bowl in the void
• Indigestion without reason as the day fades away
• Nothing there — just swallowing stomach pills in the spring fields
• Metaverse: fat extra-extra, wallet shrinking-shrinking
• Days of aging — the brain’s illusion, traces of a dream
• Empty belly — the scent of virtual garlic rises
• Under the hazy moon, paying to drink imaginary tea

Kanji / Chinese Characters

電脳拉麺無塩脂肪 中年男仮想満腹過剰胃酸分泌 救急隊出動現実胃薬処方 運営特茶定額制導入利益倍増 現実胃空脳溺脂財布軽

Emoji

🍜🥽😵‍💫🤢🚑💊🍵💸📈👴

Onomatopoeia

Slurp slurp, sluuuurp… BURP. THUD, huff huff. WEE-WOO WEE-WOO, gulp, glug. CLICK. Ka-ching ka-ching! Grrrrowl~.

SNS

• Tried #VRRamen! Didn’t eat anything but I feel so heavy 🤢
• “Communication breakdown between field office (stomach) and HQ (brain)” is way too accurate lmao #VirtualIndigestion
• The hellscape of middle-aged men wearing VR goggles and popping stomach pills — someone please stop them 😇
• Ended up subscribing to the Tokucha plan… I’ve lost this battle #Metaverse
• For those of us with weak stomachs who still crave ramen: VR doesn’t work either, confirmed.
• Getting prescribed stomach medicine at #ZeroCalories has to be a bug lmaooo
• Brain: “BACKFAT INCOMING!” Stomach: “Uh, where?” Brain: “JUST DISSOLVE IT!” #BlackCompanyBody
• Neutralizing virtual fat with virtual tea while real money disappears. The perfect business model 💸
• Can someone please make VR shredded cabbage… I need a stomach break…
• The pinnacle of wasted technology. And yet, that’s what makes it great.